Sunday, January 5, 2014

The Moral Courage in Risk Taking

The Navy was more
successful in its campaigns like Port Royal, S.C. and New Orleans than the Army
during the American Civil War particularly in the Virginia Theater. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author
James McPherson, it was “partially due to the professionalism of Navy
leadership in high positions."Dr.
McPherson answered these and other questions on 4 January during a speaking
engagement at the Society for Military History George C. Marshall lecture
series in Washington, D.C.

James
McPherson discusses the role of naval operations in the war in his most recent
work, War on the Waters: The Union &
Confederate Navies, 1861-1865.Concerning
his talk, he argued that “determined commanders can make [some of] their own
luck," as Ulysses S. Grant and David G. Farragut did at Vicksburg and
Mobile Bay, respectively.

Both Grant and
Farragut shared the "moral courage to take risks and accept failure."
Citing Farragut's decision to press forward at Mobile Bay after his lead ship Tecumseh struck a mine and sank, while Brooklyn, second in formation, veered
off course and stopped. It was at this
point that Farragut could have said, “Damn the torpedoes!” He added that Mobile Bay “was the first unequivocal
Union victory of 1864," followed by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's takeover
of Atlanta and Brig. Gen. Philip Sheridan's burning of Virginia's Shenandoah
Valley. McPherson stated that these three
victories secured Lincoln's re-election and the Union's determination to win
the war.

Farragut knew
all too well about the willingness to accept failure and take risks.Farragut spent sixty of his sixty-nine years
in the Navy.Despite this, his loyalty came
into question at the beginning of the war.According to McPherson, he "was the opposite" of Flag Officer
Samuel F. Du Pont.At Charleston, Du
Pont found himself constantly at odds with Navy Secretary Gideon Welles and
Assistant Navy Secretary Gustavus V. Fox over the practicality of taking the
South Carolina port "in an all Navy affair."He wanted to do as he did at Port Royal
earlier in the war.He would be backed
up this time by the latest class of ironclad Monitors and a specially
constructed frigate, New Ironsides,
to run the harbor's ring of batteries, forts, and waters filled with mines and
deadly obstructions.

To Lincoln,
Welles, and Fox, Du Pont's pessimism about the ability "to beat our
Southern friend and beat the Army" in subduing Charleston sounded more and
more like the letters sent by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's explaining why
the Army of the Potomac failed to move against the Confederates after success
at Antietam.

Du Pont, who spent
45 years in the Navy and served on the Blockade Strategy Board in the beginning
of the war, told Fox to “think cooly.”"There's no running the gauntlet of forts like [Farragut did] at
New Orleans" as he pressed repeatedly for a combined Army-Navy operation
with the soldiers taking the batteries and forts with supporting fire coming
from the Union fleet in covering their attacks.

McPherson felt
that Farragut believed he would "have found a way" to carry out the
attack that the president and civilian Navy leadership wanted. When Du Pont
finally attacked, his fleet of ironclads managed to get off 151 shots while the
Confederates, having set up range finders all around the harbor, fired 2,209
rounds.Over five hundred of those struck
Union ships, sinking the ironclad Keokuk in
the process.After a council of war with his ship
commanders, Du Pont, who originally considered pursuing the assault the next
day, "decided not to pursue the attack."Quoting from Welles' diary said, McPherson
said that Du Pont "had a reputation to protect not to make," and like
McClellan that sealed his fate.Despite
his good family name and pedigree, Du Pont was removed from command. He left
his position as "a bitter and broken man unwilling to take risk."

In the
public's mind and the administration's, the Navy “was expected to do the heavy
work" in the taking of New Orleans, as it had at Port Royal.Later successes, even Mobile Bay, were given
little public recognition at the time, an oversight that is changing now.

Gideon Welles was
also a risk taker.He did not adhere to
the Navy's reliance on seniority to promote commanders, McPherson said.With Farragut, he found a commander who would
take those risks.When Virginia seceded,
he "stood by the flag” despite his local connections.Before leaving for New York in the spring of
1861, Farragut presciently warned his friends and in-laws in Norfolk:"you fellows will catch the devil for
this business."Welles was not so
lucky with Du Pont and Charleston. He wrote in his diary, "If anything is
to be done, we must have a new commander.”He tapped the president's naval confidante, Flag Officer John A.
Dahlgren, for the position. Dahlgren
would fare little better than Du Pont at the seat of secession.

1 comment:

This was a very interesting post by Dr. Grady. It is interesting that both Sec. Welles and Stephen Mallory, prior to secession, when he chaired the US Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, both were opposed to the old Navy paradigm of promotion based solely on seniority, which created a moribund, calcified officer corps unwilling to risk their "reputations" for promotion. It to some extent magnifies Farragut's efforts, as he had no consideration for whether or not his success or failure would jeapordize his career and "pressed on' regardless.